Random poster in a thread about games: "Please tell me you've played more than a hundred games in your life. Think about it. A hundred. Should seem like a small number, compared to probably over a million games out there"
Interesting question. How many games HAVE I played? For the purposes of this question, let's say games you've played for a minimum of one hour. Beyond that, the definition is up to you (arcade, phone, flash, console, PC, whatever).
How many games are in your Steam/GoG libraries today?
I'm going to work on a more accurate count, but my GoG/Steam libraries have about 150 games, and I have certainly not played all of those. I would guess my bodycount is between 300 and 400, spanning from the late 80s to today, with a greatly diminished count in the last ten years.
What's yours?
I've beaten hundreds, across pretty much every genre. I couldn't even begin to count how many I've played.
Right? I'm 45 year old. I've been playing games since before they had endings other than running out of lives. It's like counting how many times I've eaten in a restaurant or watched a new series. Who even knows.
Hell, what about those old 20-in-1 game boxes that you'd wire directly into the antenna on channel 3 and had like 5 variations each of Pong and a few other games where a dot moved around the screen? Does that count as 20?
But yeah, I'm the same age and the '80s alone would put me into the hundreds. Lots of trading games with friends, trips to the rental store and arcades, and copying shareware disks.
In my DOS computer, I have some CDs that are collections of like 20 games or more. I've played basically every game on them at least once, for at least one hour. I also had over two dozen NES games. So my game count was probably upwards of 100 by the time I turned 8.
How many loaves of bread have you eaten?
This is the perfect encapsulation of my feelings on this question.
I wouldn't know where to even begin cataloging everything I've played over the years. Well that's not true, I could start by just digging out all my old Nintendo cartridges.
Unless you're an autist who has recorded every game you've ever played or a savant with perfect memory, this is a guess.
For me, it's been a fun walk down memory lane, and it's interesting to hear stories of how people got into gaming.
DIOOO!!!
Played? Hundreds, maybe a thousand.
100% completed? Under 50 probably.
Ballpark of games played 1+ hour. Some of this was triggered recently by watching Youtube "Best games of 19xx" videos.
NES games. 30. We didn't have a lot of money so I only ever owned a couple of games. I used to rent games from Blockbuster.
SNES games. 20.
N64 games. 5
PS2 games. 20
Gamecube games. 10
Wii games. 15
Switch games. 10
DS / Gameboy / etc: 30
Dreamcast games. 5
DOS games. Big question mark here. 100-150? (Lots of Sierra games, Sim games, Ultimas, 7th guest, AD&D games, random games from local BBS).
BBS games. Legend of the Red Dragon. Land of Devastation. Wow, that was a long time ago. 10+
Flash games. 50+?
Phone games. 50
Warcraft. 8 million hours.
"Modern" PC games. 100+?
These counts are also kind of misleading, because I must have hundreds of hours of Starcraft, hundrds of hours of World of Warcraft, hundreds or more of hours of Civilization, etc.
I guess conservatively I'm around 500 games. Largely a function of how old one is!
Definitely over a thousand. I've been playing games since the 80's on my NES and 386 computer.
I have around 1200 games in my Steam library due to bundling and giveaways. Most of those games will never be played since nowadays I have limited time for entertainment and most games aren't worth the time investment.
I probably played 100 games by the time I was 10 if we count shit like Spy Fox and edutainment games. Fuck, my whole class spent a week to do a couple play throughs of the latest Oregon Trail game when I was in like 5th grade.
Kids today get chromebooks. Fine for browsing the web and accessing Canvas, but severely limited. It's kind of sad, and you can really tell that kids today are not learning the same fundamental computer skills that we had to in the 90s/00s (and earlier, though fewer people were regularly using computers in the 80s and before).
I'm 48. I started on Atari 2600. Still have the ET cartridge.
Played NES all the way through its lifespan and it was age appropriate. Swapped games with the other kids all the way through elementary school. Same with Genesis and SNES. Mall arcades. Emulators. Worked at Gamestop for years, played everything they had.
Never stopped. Played almost every major title since, with exceptions. The current state of the industry is pure decline and I think I've seen the best years of it come and go.
It's hard to estimate a number I've played or finished. Four figures, definitely.
According to my GFAQs profile, I'm about to hit 750. https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/community/WebsandWigs/games
Also my average rating is 2.83, which I'm kinda proud about. I bet the IGN average would be a 7.
My steam library has over 200 played games and around 30 games in my backlog. Outside of steam I had about 50 console games across 5 consoles, and another hundred or so of PC non-steam games and Iv played maybe 40-50 apple II games. I have no idea how many flash games I've played. So all in all more than 350.
At one point or another, I've owned almost every major console since the 2600. Between that and PCs, I'm sure it's gotta be four figures. That includes tons of PC game demos back when that was a thing. The majority didn't get much play, of course, but suffice to say I've played a lot of games.
how much bread have you eaten
I have easily played over 1000. If you reduce the time requirement to ~5 minutes, then I've probably tried over 10,000 games. On steam I have played 385 games - 162 completed, the rest dropped due to being bad/meh - this is not counting multiplayer games. I own over 500 physical cartridge and disc games. I have tried a good chunk of the MAME catalog. Back in the day I'd play a new DOS shareware game every week, go to a friends house to try new games, rent a new game every other week. Then you get into PSX demo discs and flash games, it's an uncountable number of titles.
I started out on the Genesis, and the Game Gear. Had about 40 Genesis games, and 10 Game Gear games (and a big 4-lb rechargeable game gear battery pack).
Moved to the PS1 and the N64. Whooo boy. Probably only 10 n64 games (though hundreds of hours in Perfect Dark, easy). Ps1, though? At least a hundred. I had a complete dresser drawer full of them, in their little CD jewel cases. I'll err on that conservative estimate.
PS2/Gamecube! Cube I had... Probably another 10? PS2... Another dresser drawer full of them. But the boxes are twice the size, so probably 50 or so.
Cell phone! About 25 if you include snake, tetris, simon, those old flip phone games.
Game boy! All through the 3DS: 3 (GB), 2 (GBC), 15(GBA), 25 (DS+3DS combined). 45 total ish.
Arcade! Probably 5, 4 of which are DDR variants?
Now... PC.... Oh, PC.... 250 games on steam (rounding to nearest 25 to not dox). And I've played all of them for at least an hour, to ensure they work and don't need refunds. But Steam isn't the only launcher. Epic and Blizzard add about 15 more, though I've put dozens of hours, if not hundreds, into individual Use Map Settings games in Starcraft, War3, and SC2, I won't count those individually.
Then the games prior to when Steam took over the gaming monopoly. Hard to remember how many exactly, but I had a jewel-case library tower by my PC for a long time, about as tall as my torso. 25? And maybe 5 independent MMOs have eaten hundreds of hours of my life each?
So... With some very loose estimates because the numbers are so much...
575 games? Of course, many of the games have hundreds to thousands of hours on them.
EDIT: Chuck on another 100 or so if Newgrounds and Kongregate and the like piles of free Flash games count, too.
EDIT2: And about 25 visual novels? So 700 running total?
EDT3: And they just said "games", not "video games"... I've played a lot of card game variants, sports game variants, social game variants, etc. as well. I assumed "video games" by the context, but if it's just "games", that adds more, too. I don't phoo-phoo analogue games, board games are real games. Toss on another 100 or so for the analogue crowd.
I've got 650+ on Steam, though I've probably only beaten about half of them, with the other half being a mix of never played bundles or just not gripping enough to go back. So let's guess around 400 there.
I have a shelf in my house entirely devoted to my empty game cases, which I counted at around 300 a few years back. But that's an entire lifetime of slow collecting and bargain shopping.
The real problem is my close to 1500 days /played on a WoW account. Of which I haven't even played more than a few dozen since 2015.
I haven't logged in for a while, and I'm sure I'm not at 1500 days (!), but I have a still ridiculous number of hours in WoW. Played consistently through vanilla, BC, and WotLK, started taking some breaks during Cataclysm and Pandaria, and have played very sporadically since then. I still like to check out new expansions.
Yeah I went hardcore from the end of TBC up until the end of MoP, with on and off play at the start of each expansion after that until Dragonflight was finally too much for me.
And for a solid chunk of Cata and most of MoP I was getting paid for a lot of my playtime (the benefits of being a high up raider), and as that was my main source of income for that time I could probably call close to 300 days of that purely work.
I don’t quite know what it is about Dragonflight. It seems like it should be a good expansion, but I just didn’t enjoy it. I do know there too damn many systems, currencies, reps, etc. I logged in after the new patch came out (not having played for a couple of months) and I don’t have a clue what is going on.
Kudos for getting to that level of raiding. I’ve been a filthy casual for a lot of years at this point.
Ironically, I like having a lot of busy work. I'm an achievement whore at heart, and only got into raiding to be geared enough for soloing content (and getting raid only mounts). My big "quit moment" was how often later expansions would try to "seamlessly mix" all the various systems together. So if you weren't constantly running M+/raiding, you'd fall behind on everything and usually be too weak to do basic world quests.
Heck, my buddy just gave me a bunch of free months to play hardcore with him and I'll probably go back to farming my old expansion mounts and collections again in my down time. I love that shit.
Yeah, right there with you. Warcraft is a great game for grinding and farming. I think that's my problem with Dragonflight--the grinding is too complicated, gated, etc. I think you nailed it...the mixing it up all together ruined it.
Some of the most fun I've had is late expansion world stuff or previous expansion farming.
I did play some hardcore before the official server was released . It's fun. I've gotten to 30 twice before making getting ridiculously unlucky once and ridiculously stupid the second time.
Wew lad.
Those are rookie numbers by Stellaris rates.
College was a wild time, though at least 1/3 of that was logged in the background playing something else.
Been playing since the 80s so I’d say 400 to 500 counting all my arcade time. At my age now I stick to games for a long time. Been playing Skyrim and Sims now for years
I own Skyrim for PC, Switch, and Oculus, have played many many hours, and I have yet to beat it :-)
Really? You never did the main quest line? Although beating the game is kinda hard to say since it’s ever expanding
I got ~3/4 through but never finished it! I've spent a lot of time playing with mods, random exploring, etc. Maybe I should go back and finish it..
I bought the game in 2011 when it came out and didn’t do the main quest line until 2015. I was working on it and then got caught up in the civil war. For a long time I was going all over and then a dragon attack made me realize I never finished the main quest.
I worked at gaming conventions. I probably played hundreds at each one.
PAX?
And smaller shows throughout the Northwest. The Northwest Pinball and Arcade Show generally has 400-500 arcade games.
The Portland Retro Gaming Expo has about 200 arcade games, plus the console area has 50 consoles with 30 games each. Then there are display areas like Neo Geo or Portland Indie Game Squad.
Seattle Retro Gaming Expo is way smaller with 30-40 arcade games, plus a console area. Sadly they don't have the funding to continue.
ComicCon will have at least 30-40 arcade games each, plus indie booths and secret games. There are also secret games, but those take some explaining.
There are game displays that appear at malls by specific companies. Microsoft and Nintendo have a thing every year. They're generally 10 games on display each.
Indie game folks have mini conventions that have 20 games brought by members. That's a cool scene. I met the guy who made Five Nights at Freddy's through that.
The bigger conventions will also have mini conventions or displays outside. Every hotel will have an area for journalists or influencers. That's a weird thing because it's just tvs with consoles and guys in suits watching. Imagine seeing a hand puppet talking to a camera outside a hotel as well.
All of these places have games for sale. I generally go in with a $100 budget. The popular 3 years ago games sell for a $1. So my collection is a bit more vast than I like to admit. Gamestores will have a small thing, and I'll grab a game or two. Pawn Shops will have games for cheap because they're outside of the gaming bubble. I got a PSP for $15.
One of the biggest things about moving to Florida is I am generally away from that. I want to work conventions like FreePlay and IAAPA, or find the nice game shops. Its just not as big here, and I work with theme experience designers, so they're generally ignorant of any scenes nearby. The newest game being played in my office is Guild Wars.
It's just impossible for me to tally. Besides the consoles I've owned and the games I've played at the houses of forgotten friends in childhood, I also grew up in the arcade era and floated around waggling the sticks and bashing the buttons on tons of games. Even setting a 1 hour minimum play-time would keep a lot of those in my total, but the ones I played for less than that still gave me a lot of entertainment at the time so it feels like a shame to discount them.
I have 225 played games on Steam and probably over 200 of those have at least 1 hour in them. I also played a shitload of games on PC before Steam was a thing and continue to play a lot outside Steam - GOG (mostly without Galaxy, so no stats), emulation, obscure Jap shit, VNs, piracy... So that added to my gaming childhood has to put me at at least 500, but it could even be something as nuts as 7-800 or even 1000.
I've just completely lost track. My problem is the amount of games I actually beat is a ridiculously small fraction of the larger total. Just this year I have hundreds of hours in several JRPGs and some miscellaneous Steam purchases, but I didn't finish any of them. The only games I finished this year were Arkham Knight, Rance 2, Yakuza 5 and Ys 2. Ironically I probably got more enjoyment out of most of the games I gave up on than these four, every one of which I forced myself to beat for some or other ocd-style reason.
Probably more than a thousand, off the top of my head. Beaten less than half, notwithstanding that some games can't be beaten.
I've been playing games since 83. I'm likely coming up to 1200-1500 games by now. Probably closer to 2000 if you count renting them, back when that was a thing.
Probably a little over 100 when you add up all the platforms. I'm not into games enough to love them for their own sake, I just enjoy playing the really good ones.
Don't think I could come up with a realistic number.
I have over 2000 games on Steam, over 200 on GoG and many hundreds more on other platforms/physical/"backups"/etc. How many of those I've played? No idea.
That's a lot on Steam! For me it's been mostly buying up games I couldn't play--but wanted to--when I was a kid.
I used to buy a ton of indie bundles. Due to the sheer amount I went from "I have to finish every game I buy" to "I'll only play as long as it's fun".
I've never really thought about it to be honest, not sure quantity matters much, but it does in the case of you having only played 5 games or some abysmally small amount.
I'm going to guess I am in the area of 300+ but it could be higher, if the minimum was 1 hour.
I've got about 200 games on Steam, some through bundles, some from trading Steam items and getting cash that way, I've 100% completed about 30 on my Steam account. I've had every console since SNES, except the Xbox One and whatever the current Xbox is. So maybe it is higher than 300+, cause I used to love renting games on weekends and it was very normal to do that with my parents as a child.
RPGs, especially jRPGs are what the vast bulk of my game count would be, fun to think about and I'll have to ask my friends some time and see what they think their number is.
I had totally forgotten that game! MAy have to up how many NES games I played. I never owned many, but between sharing with friends, Blockbuster, etc., it's go to be up there.
So many weird games too. A Boy and His Blob? (Apparently has a 2009 remake)
I would say about 500 games or so but it may be more, I thought I did not play much this year but steams year in review tells me that, this year, I've played 45 games, 30 of them for the first time. This does not include other platforms.
I don't even want to know the total number of games I've played, it would be depressing.
Damn that brings back the memories. One of my earliest computer and game experiences was getting a book from the library that had 600 lines of GWBASIC code for some kind of alien shooter game. I spent hours typing that and I never got it to work.
It did get me interested in programming and trying to understand why it didn't work!
I couldn't possibly count. I mean my MAME rom collection alone has thousands of ROMs that i've played. I've owned at least 30 consoles and 12 pc's. Would have to be pushing 10,000. Of course a lot of those I just out the game on and played for 10 minutes then moved to the next one. I think a better metric is how many games actually finished? I'd probably be around 800 for that.
God almighty, I was a late starter despite growing in the 80s, although mates had SNES/news/sega and the like, so mario, sonic and street fighter were staples, then in 90s it was playstation, I remember paying that off weekly for six weeks to get it, played dozens including resident evil, all 3 of them, some kind of demolition derby thing, metal gear solid, a few others in short not a bloody clue